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District 5060
District 5060 is an
international district of fifty-six Rotary clubs with a membership
of about three thousand. Thirty-three of the clubs are in British
Columbia (Zone 22) and twenty-three are located in the state of
Washington (Zone 23). The election of district governors usually
alternates between American and Canadian clubs. The District has
always been international.
In 1914, the
area that now encompasses Districts 5060 and 5080 were in Division
15, which included Rotary Clubs in Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane,
Vancouver, and Victoria. James Giffen of Vancouver was
vice-president of the Division. The first Rotary Conference was held
in Tacoma in 1914, followed the next year by a conference in
Victoria, B.C. In 1915, divisions became districts and
vice-presidents became governors. District 15 then included all of
Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska, and the panhandle of
Idaho, but four years would have to pass before there would be a
single club in what is now District 5060. The Rotary Club of Yakima,
Washington, chartered in 1919, has the distinction of being that
club. As Rotary grew, Districts were constantly reorganized and
renumbered. In 1956, the present boundaries of the District were
established and the district number 506 assigned which was changed
to 5060 in 1991.
Kelowna Rotarian
Dr. Harold Henderson served as Director of Rotary International in
1976-78, and 3rd Vice-president 1977-78, under RI President Jack
Davis of Bermuda.
In recent years,
there has been phenomenal growth in the District; consequently,
twenty-one new Rotary clubs have been chartered since 1985, sixteen
of them on the Canadian side.
Like most other
Rotary Districts, District 5060 has gone hi-tech with a district web
site. A District Office has been established in Kamloops.
Service to Youth
Currently, the District
operates the following programs for youth: Literacy and Numeracy
programs, Youth Exchange, RYLA, and Rotaract (Rotary in Action).
The District
5060 web site lists sources of materials for teachers and students
to strengthen literacy and numeracy, especially for students
“at-risk.” Some clubs have more direct programs. The Rotary Club of
Merritt has donated fifteen hundred dollars to each of three
elementary schools for the purchase of materials for the
international One-to-One Literacy Program. The Rotary Club of Upper
Kitatas County, Washington, donates, as a speaker’s gift, a book in
the speaker’s name to the library of one of the local schools.
The Youth
Exchange program flourishes. Sixty-seven inbound and outbound
students attended the 2003 District Conference. The Rotary Youth
Leadership Awards program (RYLA) is growing in popularity and
stature.
The Rotaract Club of Kelowna, sponsored by the
Rotary Club of Kelowna Capri, was chartered in July 1999 with
twenty-five founding members. The Club is strongly supported by the
five Rotary Clubs in the Kelowna area that occasionally participate
in meetings and events, share experiences with the Rotaractors, and
provide hands-on guidance towards creating future Rotarians.
Rotaract’s
mission focuses on three areas of member development: professional
development, leadership development, and local and international
service projects. Some of the activities the Club has organized and
participated in recently include the following: the fifth annual
Project Save–A--Life CPR training event which provides the community
with first class CPR training free of charge; construction
of the Paul’s Tomb Trail on Knox Mountain; financial support of a
clean water project that built clean water wells in La Perla de
Yarina, Peru; several family and community fun days and fundraisers;
leadership workshops; support of international exchange students;
and physical cleanup efforts in the community.
As young men and
women aged eighteen tothirty, members of the Rotaract Club focus on
youth support and involvement in the community. They try to keep the
meetings, events, and projects full of fun and energy. The Club
meets on the first and third Tuesday of every month at different
venues around Kelowna, depending on current projects. Attendance
requirements are more flexible than those of Rotary Clubs as they
focus on long-term commitment. Most of the communication and
business is conducted through e-mail, so that even those who cannot
attend a meeting maintain active participation. Maintaining members
is a challenge, so every March, the Club conducts a membership
drive.
International Service
The Rotary Foundation is a
cornerstone of Rotary in District 5060. Contributions to TRF grow
every year, and participation in Foundation projects is excellent. A
Health Hunger and Humanities (3-H) grant of U.S. $400,000 for a
village improvement program in India gave new meaning to World
Community Service projects.
The PolioPlus
Program united clubs in the District as few other projects had,
ensuring that the District achieved its original goal. The recent
Polio Eradication campaign produced a number of interesting
fundraising ideas. One was a cruise to Alaska; another was the Ed
Cadman Run, which involved pulling and pushing two iron lungs. One
started in the town of Clearwater, B.C.; the other at Prosser in
south-central Washington. They met at the 2003 District Conference
in Penticton, B.C. The runners raised awareness and collected funds
from Rotary Clubs along the route.
Community Service
All the Clubs have some sort
of environmental project underway or completed, such as restoring
marshlands, creating bird sanctuaries, community cleanup et cetera.
Six Rotary Clubs in the Kelowna area raised three hundred thousand
dollars in order to qualify for grants from various levels of
government for a six million dollar building to be named The Rotary
Centre for the Arts. Kelowna Rotary Clubs have a stellar record of
providing specific-purpose buildings for the benefit of surrounding
communities such as the Rotary Cancer Lodge.
A cancer clinic,
serving communities in the southern interior of British Columbia,
was established in Kelowna in 1995. It was soon evident that a
lodge was needed, where visiting and accompanying relatives and
friends could stay at minimal cost. The lodge would be a
home-away-from-home, where patients could have peaceful surroundings
while undergoing cancer treatment and where parents could be with
children who had to undergo treatment at the clinic. When built, the
lodge would provide thirty-five suites for patients and their
families. There would be a large activity room for recreation,
dining room facilities, a kitchenette where snacks and beverages
would be available twenty-four hours a day, around the clock nursing
supervision, and other amenities.
The Canadian
Cancer Society planned the project and agreed to cover $2.8 million
of the $4.9 million construction costs. The remaining $2.1 million
would be raised by the communities served by the lodge, of which
Rotary Clubs would contribute a substantial amount. A question arose
as to how much. Research indicated that the clinic and lodge would
serve an area which had fifty-four Canadian Rotary Clubs in three
districts, two of them, 5060, and 5080, international. Four clubs
were in District 5040, thirty-five in District 5060, and fifteen in
District 5080. It was agreed that all fifty-four clubs would
participate in fundraising.
The fundraising
campaign got started in fall of 1996, when Ken Arthurs, District
Governor of District 5060 and a member of the Salmon Arm Rotary
Club, was invited by President Anne Clark of the Vernon Rotary Club
to a meeting to explore how sufficient funds for the cancer lodge
could be raised by Rotarians. Arthurs took Club member Don Monroe to
the meeting with him. Anne hoped that Rotarians could raise about
one hundred thousand dollars, but she realized that it might be
risky, because a three District-wide fundraising campaign had never
been attempted before. Arthurs agreed that the clubs in the
districts would be able to raise that amount. Munroe offered the
opinion that it would be possible to raise one million dollars
spread over two years. Moreover, with a million donation came the
privilege of naming the lodge.
DG Arthurs set
up a fundraising committee whose first task was to confirm the
viability of the project. Next it had to seek the support of three
levels of district governors of three districts – the district
governors for 1996-97, the district governors nominee for 1997-98,
and the district governors nominee-designate for 1998-99. Each level
gave enthusiastic support of the undertaking and undertook to
promote the concept at the club level. Members of the Rotary
fundraising committee contacted every club to seek their commitment
to the project. Each club was asked to contribute at least five
hundred dollars per member.
A clear
indication that Rotarians were behind the project came when the
small Rotary Club of Penticton Skaha (membership of thirteen)
presented committee member Jeff den Biesen with a cheque for ten
thousand dollars. The fundraising campaign was officially launched
on 28 January 1997, when the Campaign for Cancer Care, the
organization responsible for raising the needed funds for the lodge,
held a news conference in Kelowna, at the construction site.The
highlight of the conference was the presentation by DG Ken Arthurs
of a symbolic cheque of one million dollars with an explanation of
how Rotarians arrived at that figure. After the conference, funds
began to pour in.
Rotarian Ray
Gowriluk, a member of the Rotary Club of Salmon Arm, organized a
raffle of a twenty-seven-foot fifth wheel and truck. Twenty-five
thousand tickets sold for twenty dollars a ticket raised four
hundred thousand dollars. By the late spring of 1998 another truck
raffle was organized. This time only two thousand tickets were sold
at twenty dollars each. With the proceeds from this raffle, the
Rotary fund-raising total reached the one million dollar mark.
Meanwhile, construction of the cancer lodge was complete. On 6 July
1998, the official opening of the facility took place. With the
donation of one million dollars came the privilege of naming the
lodge. After careful consideration the name adopted was:
Canadian Cancer Society
Southern Interior Rotary Lodge
Rotary Districts 5040 – 5060 – 5080
The final step in the fundraising effort took place on 10 November
1998, when Canadian Cancer Society officials went to Salmon Arm to
accept officially the one million dollar donation from Rotary. The
Salmon Arm Rotary Club was chosen for this presentation, because
among the three local Rotary Clubs in Salmon Arm, it had raised more
money than any of the other clubs in the three districts. More than
two hundred thirty Rotarians from different clubs gathered at the
Salmon Arm Community Centre, where PDG Ken Arthurs handed the cheque
to Dean Cooper, head of the Cancer Care Committee. Arthurs then
capped it off by adding an additional one hundred ninety thousand
dollars to the total and an extra ten thousand dolars to allow the
Cancer Society to document on video the building of the Southern
Interior Rotary Lodge. With the video, the Cancer Society hopes to
raise awareness in other parts of British Columbia where cancer
treatment centres and cancer lodges are still in the planning
stages.
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